This study addresses in an exploratory fashion the following questions. 1. Would non-monetary performance measures grouped into a statement of public efforts and accomplishments significantly reduce the uncertainty of decision makers concerning past entity performance? 2. Would knowledge of such data alter their resultant budgetary decisions?
The focus of the study is on financial reporting for non-U.S. firms registered with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) but using International Accounting Standards (IAS). This study addresses two issues, (1) whether the comparability of financial reporting among firms using IAS in credit and equity financing jurisdictions increases over time and (2) the associated capital market implications. The motivation for the study is the SEC's ongoing assessment of IAS for possible use by non-U.S. registrants for listing and capital raising in the U.S. Previous research on variations in financial reporting practices has revealed distinctly different types of financial reporting depending on country of origin. Moreover, some research suggests that such differences in financial reporting tend to persist in spite of harmonization efforts of accounting standards. This study suggests that there may be a systematic difference between credit and equity firms' financial reporting that is manifested by the fact that credit firms' adjustments to U.S. GAAP are greater than the adjustments made by equity firms. This systematic difference has had the following capital market consequences for credit firms, (1) a decreasing strength of association between accounting earnings and share prices post-1994, (2) an increased bid-ask spread post-1994, and (3) a decreased trading volume post-1994. This may be an indication that on the average firms reporting under IAS fail to meet an important part of the SEC's second assessment criterion with respect to high quality and full disclosure, namely comparability. In addition, it seems that the revisions made by International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have not resulted in more congruent financial reporting among firms reporting under IAS over time.
In 1990, the accounting profession and the British government worked together to establish a new regulatory framework for financial reporting in the United Kingdom (UK), the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and its two subsidiaries, the Accounting Standards Board (ASB) and the Financial Reporting Review Panel (FRRP). The FRRP enforces companies' compliance with the ASB's accounting standards and the accounting provisions of the UK Companies Act. Only one study, Brandt et al. (1997), has examined the activities and effectiveness of the FRRP. This dissertation attempts to extend Brandt et. al (1997) and add to understanding of the origins and regulatory actions of the FRRP.
This study examines the usefulness of general price level information (GPL) and current cost information (CC) originally provided by SFAS No. 33 as compared to historical cost information (HC) in predicting bankruptcy. The study also examines the usefulness of GPL data versus CC data when each supplements HC data. In addition, this study tests the usefulness of the three types of information systems combined in one model (HC, GPL, and CC) versus HC data in predicting bankruptcy. The study focuses on the predictability of business failure using financial ratios as predictors. A comparison of these predictors is made in order to identify the accounting system that yields a better prediction of bankruptcy. Two multivariate statistical techniques, multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and logistic regression analysis (LRA), are used to derive the ex—post classification and the ex-ante prediction results. Six functions are developed, based on ratios computed with HC, CC, GPL, the combined HC and GPL, the combined HC and CC, and the combined HC, GPL, and CC. The resulting functions are used to classify 40 firms as failed or nonfailed. The analysis is repeated for three time bases—one, two, and three years before bankruptcy. The main results of the various analyses indicate that the combined HC and CC model has more discriminant power than does the HC, the GPL, or the combined HC and GPL models in each of the three years before bankruptcy. The results also show that there are significant differences in the overall classification rate derived from the combined HC, GPL, and CC model and the HC model, the GPL model, or the combined HC and GPL model . The differences between the combined HC and CC and the combined HC, GPL, and CC models are not significant in each of the three years before bankruptcy. The results …
This study examines the impact of Statements of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 and No. 142 (hereafter SFAS 141, 142) on the characteristics of financial analysts' earnings forecasts after mergers. Specifically, I predict lower forecast errors for firms that experienced mergers after the enactment of SFAS 141, 142 than for firms that went through business combinations before those accounting changes. Study results present strong evidence that earnings forecast errors for companies involved in merging and acquisition activity decreased after the adoption of SFAS 141, 142. Test results also suggest that lower earnings forecast errors are attributable to factors specific to merging companies such as SFAS 141, 142 but not common to merging and non-merging companies. In addition, evidence implies that information in corporate annual reports of merging companies plays the critical role in this decrease of earnings forecast error. Summarily, I report that SFAS 141, 142 were effective in achieving greater transparency of financial reporting after mergers. In my complementary analysis, I also document the structure of corporate analysts' coverage in "leaders/followers" terms and conduct tests for differences in this structure: (1) across post-SFAS 141,142/pre-SFAS 141, 142 environments, and (2) between merging and non-merging firms. Although I do not identify any significant differences in coverage structure across environments, my findings suggest that lead analysts are not as accurate as followers when predicting earnings for firms actively involved in mergers. I also detect a significant interaction between the SFAS-environment code and leader/follower classification, which indicates greater improvement of lead analyst forecast accuracy in the post-SFAS 141, 142 environment relative to their followers. This interesting discovery demands future investigation and confirms the importance of financial reporting transparency for the accounting treatment of business combinations.
Prior to the issuance of Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 8 (SFAS No. 8), there was a marked inconsistency in the area of accounting for foreign currency translation. Though designed to make the diverse accounting practices of multinational corporations (MNCs) more compatible, SFAS No. 8 was the subject of a great deal of criticism, eventually leading to the issuance of Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 52 (SFAS No. 52). SFAS No. 52 differs from SFAS No. 8 on objectives and method of translation, and on accounting treatments of translation adjustments. This dissertation provides an empirical examination of the security market reaction to the accounting policy change embodied in SFAS No. 52, and its impact on the volatility of reported earnings of MNCs. The effects of the issuance and early adoption of SFAS No. 52 on security return distributions were determined by both cross-sectional comparisons of cumulative average residuals (CAR) between MNCs and domestic firms and between early and late adopters, and by time-series tests on CAR of MNCs. Two volume analyses were performed to test the effects of SFAS No. 52 on security volume. The first analysis was adjusted to remove the effects of the marketwide factors on volume, and the second analysis was unadjusted for the market influences. Four nonparametric tests were used in testing the effects of SFAS No. 52 vis-a-vis SFAS No. 8 on the volatility of reported earnings of MNCs. The findings of this study led to the following conclusions: (1) SFAS No. 52 had significantly affected security returns of MNCs, but had no significant effects on security volume of MNCs; (2) the early adoption of SFAS No. 52 had no effects on security returns and volume of early adopters as opposed to late adopters; and (3) SFAS No. 52 did not have any …
George O. May's (1952) prescient statement that "if accounting had not already become, it was well on its way to becoming a political phenomenon" provides the motivation for this study. Changing socioeconomic relationships in the post-World War II period make it an ideal period to examine the politicalization of accounting. Keynesian economic policies justified active government intervention in the economy to manage demand and ensure full employment. No longer could it be assumed that competitive market forces would ensure that corporations produced goods and services at a socially optimal level or that income would be distributed equitably. Claims that accounting profit provides a measure of managerial efficiency are based on these premises. This dissertation examines the political dynamics of one particular accounting measurement debate--the debate over the determination of business income. Policies, such as wage/price controls, the excess profits tax, and the undistributed profits tax, brought the accounting income determination debate to center stage. The perseverance of the historic cost allocation model in the face of significant economic changes presents a fascinating glimpse of the important role accounting played in justifying continued reliance on the private property rights paradigm. I use retrodiction (reasoning from present to past) to examine why the historic cost allocation model has been so enduring. In my examination, I use personal correspondence, transcripts of Congressional hearings, published financial statements, and relevant journal articles. My analysis indicates that, while accountants empathized with managers who claimed that inflation distorted reported earnings and recognized that a serious measurement scale issue existed, they also recognized that abandonment of historic cost would not be politically feasible. If accountants had adopted a strongly partisan position that favored management with respect to bargaining with labor, this could have undermined the profession's claim to neutrality and opened the standard-setting process to closer political scrutiny. …
This dissertation presents empirical evidence intended to help answer two research questions. The first question asks whether executive compensation systems appear to exploit the bias in accounting-based performance measures in order to reduce the volatility in executive compensation and to allocate incentives more effectively across the range of activities performed by the executive. The second question asks whether compensation systems systematically differ between firms that use alternative accounting methods and whether any such systematic difference helps explain accounting choice. Parameters estimated in fixed-effects endogenous switching regression models were used to test the risk-shielding and incentive-allocation hypotheses. The models were estimated across a dataset consisting of 1151 executive-year observations of annual compensation paid to 222 top-level executives in 40 oil and gas firms. The dataset was partitioned by accounting method and separate models estimated for the full cost and successful efforts partitions. The tests provided modest support for the risk-shielding and incentive-allocation hypotheses, revealing that accounting measurement bias is used to focus incentives for effort in the exploration activity and to reduce executives' exposure to production risk. The design also allowed an estimate of the proportional change in compensation that was realized from the accounting choice actually made.
This study contributes to the debate on accounting pedagogy in the basic financial accounting course by examining the pedagogical tool of fluency training as a way to improve student performance. Fluency training has been shown to improve performance of students in other academic disciplines.
Prior to Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No.121 (SFAS No.121): Accounting for the Impairment of Long-Lived Assets and Long-Lived Assets to Be Disposed Of, managers had substantial discretion concerning the amount and timing of reporting writedowns of long-lived assets. Moreover, the frequency and dollar amount of asset writedown announcements that led to a large “surprise” caused the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to consider the need for a new standard to guide the recording of impairment of long-lived assets. This study has two primary objectives. First, it investigates the effects of SFAS No.121 on asset impairment reporting, examining whether SFAS No.121 reduces the magnitude and restricts the timing of reporting asset writedowns. Second, the study compares the information content (surprise element) of the asset impairment loss announcement as measured by cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) before and after the issuance of SFAS No.121. The findings provide support for the hypothesis that the FASB's new accounting standard does not affect the magnitude of asset writedown losses. The findings also provide support for the hypothesis that SFAS No. 121 does not affect the management choice of the timing for reporting asset writedowns. In addition, the findings suggest that the market evaluates the asset writedown losses after the issuance of SFAS No. 121 as good news for “big bath” firms, while, for “income smoothing” firms, the market does not respond to the announcements of asset writedown losses either before or after the issuance of SFAS No. 121. The findings also suggest that, for “big bath” firms, the market perceives the announcement of asset impairment losses after the adoption of SFAS No. 121 as more credible relative to that before its issuance. This could be because the practice of reporting asset writedowns after the issuance of SFAS No. …
One of the critical issues that face the accounting profession today involves choosing among alternative accounting information modes. This dissertation provides comparative empirical evidence on the predictive power of accrual-based accounting signals versus cash-flow accounting signals versus both of these signals jointly. The empirical hypotheses compare the degrees of association between the market evaluative criteria, market beta and security price behavior, and the different accounting signals. The research methodology employed includes the following. 1. Market beta and changes in security prices are used as the evaluative criteria. 2. Two regression models are developed and used to test the predictive power of the alternative accounting signals. 3. Several specifications for each model are used. These specifications are simple regression, multiple regression, interaction effect, partial correlation, incremental correlation, and time series and cross sectional analysis.
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